From: Ian blenkharn@ianblenkharn.com
Category: News & information
Date: 21 Aug 2009
Time: 10:07:21 +0200
Remote Name: 81.154.186.120
A man pleaded guilty to one count each of unlawful dumping, illegal handling of solid waste and illegal storage of human waste after officials said they found over 6,000 pounds (~2,700kg) of waste in a trailer - including amputated limbs - that had not been properly disposed of.
Lee operated a company called Biotech Corporation which did business as a biomedical waste collection service. Biotech was supposed to collect medical waste from various facilities in the metro Atlanta area and transport the waste to a licensed disposal treatment facility. Lee had obtained for Biotech a permit from the State Environmental Protection Division to transport medical waste; he and Biotech did not, however, have any permit or authority to store such waste, police said.
In October 2003, Thermo King – a company that rents climate-controlled trailers – reported Lee abandoned a trailer on their property that contained medical waste.
http://www.wsbtv.com/news/20465910/detail.html
Interesting that this guy has used rental trainers to more, and in this case, to store clinical wastes. This is not too uncommon and happens in the UK also when regular vehicles are off the road for some reason, or to provide additional storage in the event of some unexpected delay in treatment. Unfortunately, there is rarely any proper arrangements for cleansing of vehicles after use, that next day may be used to transport general goods or even foodstuffs. I dealt with a case such as this around 15 years ago, and as yet nothing has changed. Regulators would be well advised to deal with this, with some recommendations or requirements to ensure that if rental vehicles are used for wastes there is a documented decontamination process applied before the truck is returned to normal use.
see also http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta-man-dumped-3-119606.html